6th January 2010

David Young has been diligently working away in his workshop on the steam mule project. He sent through these images of progress on the coupling rod – a superb piece of engineering and made my hard work, sweat and toil!

Below: Blog followers may remember this previously seen image of the coupling rod being chain drilled by David. I have posted it again as a logical start to the sequence of images below.

Below: Joining the holes together…

Below: Jumping ahead a few steps (and many many hours of work) here is the machined rod, now with circular section rod and squared bearing housings. Also shown here are the bearings, in two parts, plus wedge and locating bolt which enables their adjustment and securing. This is the ‘little end’, made up to a design in Lowe & Bevis.

Below: Drilling the big end bolt holes on the milling machine.

Below: The completed connecting rod plus reference.

Below: Work in progress on the new crankshaft has halted due to a lathe motor fault – does anyone have a spare 1.5hp three phase motor spare? This image shows the old crankshaft and the state of the eccentrics – note the numerous and varied holes in the castings. David is making a new crankshaft for the engine. I haven’t heard his prognosis on the eccentrics yet and whether these ones will be reusable in the project!